The Legend of Bender
by RWT3
Summary: When the Avatar was lost for a second time, the world needed a new savior: a Bender unlike any other.


_ Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My great-grandpappy used to tell me shanties about the olden days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads, and that that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked, until Avatar Aang returned and he and his friends restored order to the world. But that all changed when the Wood Empire attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four original elements. Only he could stop the rise of the ruthless Woodbenders. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years have passed, and the Wood Empire is nearing victory in the War. Two years ago, my father and the men of my village journeyed to the western reaches of the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Wood Empire, leaving my cousin Jok to look after our home. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Earth Kingdom, and that the cycle is broken. But I haven't lost hope. I still believe that somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world._

…

"Quiet, everyone! I have a new invention to show you!" The Professor stood at the table, hands folded and eyes staring vacantly in wildly different directions behind his thick, frosted glasses. Fry, Leila, Amy, Hermes, Zoidberg, and the other scruffy-looking guy with the hat and the moustache pretended to pay attention to him.

He continued. "I present you with: the Blue-Ray!" His hands remained clenched and not, as might be supposed, in front of him holding an invention of some kind.

Fry was unphased. "What does it do? Play movies?"

The professor roared, his frail body convulsing quietly, "No, you ningoramus!" His arms dropped down to a box on the floor, and he produced a sleek, glassy blue tube that narrowed to a foil-covered top. It also beeped or something, very convincingly. "With this device, you can make anything blue!" the Professor announced.

A chorus of "oh, wow," came from the table. Zoidberg clapped furiously.

"Why's it look like a bottle of champagne, Professor?" Fry asked.

The professor's eyes narrowed, unbeknownst to anyone else. "That's a stupid question! You're stupid!" The vitriol spewing out of his aging, withered maw was palpable. "Any other questions?"

Leila leaned back in her uncomfortable egg chair. "What are you going to turn blue, Professor?"

"Zoidberg?" Hermes asked, hopefully.

"I'm already blue." The crustacean looked down woefully.

The Professor scowled, tearing several ligaments in the process. "No, I would never use something this powerful for such a stupid endeavor. I intend to use it to corner the market in blueberries!"

Another chorus of "oh, wow" followed. Zoidberg clapped furiously.

The professor resumed his folded hands position and smiled. "That brings me to your next mission. You'll be going to the Berry Planet to collect-"

Bender strode in in his usual fashion. "Yo, professor, you're all out of rubbing alcohol and mouthwash in the can! How am I supposed to get my groove on?"

Fry woke up. "Just run down to the store and buy some more. Can you get me a new wallet, too? Mine's stuck in a pickle jar."

"What do I look like to you, a walking robot?" Bender extended his hand cuffs to put them on his hips. "I'm a _bending_ unit. I _bend_ things. Like your mother!" He laughed, thoroughly amused with himself and at peace with the world for a moment.

"Bender, we're in the middle of something!" the Professor spoke, what little remained of his blood beginning to simmer.

"Yeah, I'll pipe down." He grabbed the bottle-shaped Blue Ray from the Professor's weak, decrepit fingers. "Psych!"

"Bender, don't!" the table yelled.

"Oh boy, I love me some Dom Perig-nan!" The servos in his hand popped out the cork-shaped firing mechanism.

"You mechanical fool!" the Professor yelled, his hands trying to wave wildly.

Before Bender could activate his sarcasm circuit, the cork shot up out of the device, followed by a pulsing blue stream of energy. It broke straight through the skylight, streaming up into the sky with the blue ray behind it. The whole crew looked on in shock, cast in a bright blue glow, as the beam wound up past the clouds, past the atmosphere. Once the bottle had been drained, the stream tapered off, leaving Bender holding an empty device as the beam of blue shot off into space.

The cork continued to go faster and faster in the vacuum of space, followed directly by the long, twisting beam of blue light. As it convulsed and vibrated, the light continued in a dead-straight path, burning straight through asteroids, nebulae, and a single very unlucky cabbage-shaped planet. After a few minutes, it had travelled millions of miles away into the depths of space.

The Professor stepped back from the smelloscope and fumbled with his glasses. "I trailed the scent of my dirty laundry all the way to a distant galaxy. Good thing I tag all of my inventions with traces of my own sweat and body odor!"

A chorus of "eww" came in much the same manner as before.

Zoidberg clapped furiously.

"The Blue Ray beam disappeared around the center of the galaxy 'Trish and Tina Forever'."

"Why's it called that?" Fry asked, stuffing his face with nachos.

"The International Star Registry did a massive marketing campaign after Texas legalized gay marriage in 2237. The Little Dipper is now made up entirely of members of the Village People."

Leila spoke up. "Professor, what's at the center of that galaxy?"

"Oh," he rubbed his spectacles, "a wormhole to a distant world."

"A whatchity-what?" Hermes exclaimed

"A rip in the fabric of the universe, leaving open a portal to another place in time and space, or even another universe entirely!" He paused to take precious air into his diminished lungs. "The Blue Ray beam could be anywhere."

"Neat," Fry uttered thoughtfully.

"Faster, faster! Your father will not be pleased if you cannot keep up the pace."

The young girl stopped to breathe in deeply. Her arms and legs throbbed with a passion and fury that was far beyond her age. She felt anger and pain curling up her back. There was a fire in her eyes that needed to be let out. The targets arranged around her fell into her tunnel vision, and she prepared to strike each and every one precisely, smoothly, and quicker than before. It would be done, or she would continue to do it faster until they were satisfied.

Then the feeling dissipated. A butterfly flew by her face delicately and landed on one of the posts. The girl let her tensed arms fall to her sides. Her stance relaxed.

Before her matrons could chide her, a voice came from inside the house.

"Lo, Li! The royal procession has returned!" a servant called.

Lo turned to her ward. "Be ready to go when we get back."

The girl smiled as the beautiful creature flapped its delicate blue-green wings. She took a step towards it, gingerly hoping to get a closer look. She giggled to herself, overcome with joy.

Out of nowhere, a cork fell on her head. She flared, whirling around to see who had thrown it at her. She formed a small flame in her hand and looked furtively for her pesky older brother hiding somewhere around the courtyard. No one was there, and the fire in her started to fade. She remembered the butterfly, still resting quietly on its perch.

Then something very strange happened. Again out of the sky, a huge bolt of blue light came down, colliding directly with the girl through her outstretched hand. She stood transfixed as the entire beam flowed into her body, making the entire courtyard glow in the eerie colour. Then, the light faded as suddenly as it had appeared. The girl fell to her knees, too weak to move.

When she could stand up again, she felt better. She felt the power returning to her, the energy she had never had but so sorely missed coursing through her body. She looked over at the butterfly, still resting on the target, as if for the first time. Her hand shot out with perfect form, and a bolt of fire emerged. She was not the least surprised when the bolt of flame came out bright blue, fully formed, and aimed directly at the butterfly.

The girl had always known she was gifted; it was nothing to think she was special. Who was she after all, but the perfect embodiment of power and strength? That was what she was destined to become, and she was foolish to ever have doubted it. She shot another stream of blue fire out of her finger tip at a target, not to see if she could, but because she enjoyed reveling in her abilities.

Lo and Li returned. In a moment they would ask her to repeat the trial they had been working on all afternoon and all morning. She would of course complete it faster, not as fast as they would like but twice as fast as that. She would do it not only faster, but stronger and better, better than anyone else. Her father couldn't help but be proud of her.


End file.
